


The Circles of the Stormy Moon

by MilwaukeeMeg



Category: Gintama
Genre: Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, hurt shinpachi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 14:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7390555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilwaukeeMeg/pseuds/MilwaukeeMeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shinpachi gets seriously hurt during a fight. Gintoki and Kagura (try to) deal with it. Written for a prompt on fyeashinpachi tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Circles of the Stormy Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt by Anon
> 
> "Hey there! As a fellow pattsuan fan, I was wondering if you are still taking fic requests? If that's the case, could please please write about pachi getting seriously hurt during a battle or something and gin and kagura's reactions to it? that's my fave trope! thanks in advance and I love your blog!"

Somehow it went exactly like one of the scenarios playing in Gintoki’s head at 3AM when insomnia struck. 

The job seemed easy; but things got complicated (like always), bad guys that trapped them in a warehouse (typical) turned out to be in cahoots with Harusame (not so common but not actually unheard of). Gintoki was not overly worried; Kagura was slightly hungry what always made her fight better, Shinpachi somehow got a hold of a pretty good sword and even Gintoki himself was not hungover, meaning the Yorozuya was more or less on top of their game. In few minutes, there wasn’t much enemies left. 

And then it all went to hell. Kagura charged at the big, boar-like Amanto, leaving her back wide open. Gintoki could only yell a warning, sidestepping a bear-like alien who tried to engage him, and throw himself in her direction, knowing that he would be three seconds too late to stop a small, cloaked enemy from plunging a long dagger in her back. But suddenly there was Shinpachi, parrying the strike, and Gintoki would have almost sighed with relief, if it weren’t for a glint of steel from the cloak. 

Gintoki could feel his heart stop, then start again with a new surge of adrenaline thrust into his system; the time stretched even more, and those two seconds he needed to get there suddenly felt like hours. It made Gintoki watch practically in slow motion as a second, previously hidden dagger sunk into Shinpachi’s chest, boy’s eyes widening almost comically as his whole body spasmed. The first dagger was brought back and aimed at the throat

“Shinpachi! Hold on!” 

Gintoki was finally here, cutting those damned hands away from Shinpachi, momentum carrying him down on another Amanto who wanted a cheap shot at already wounded enemy. With a corner of his eye, Gintoki could see that the white hakamashita was already becoming red with blood. Shinpachi finally made a sound, a rather startled moan of pain. 

“SHINPACHIIII” Kagura was almost instantly at boy’s side, and though Gintoki couldn’t see her face, busy fighting the bear-like Amanto who was annoyingly fast, he knew she had that panicked, wide-eyed look that made her look like a little kid she actually was. 

There was a series of loud thuds, and quick assessment made it clear that Kagura took on a few last enemies who dared to come close to Shinpachi, with intensity that should be worrying Gintoki, but he really couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. Shinpachi himself sunk down to his knees and then even further down, to his side. Gintoki felt like howling. 

Instead he finished off the last Amanto, and threw himself back, yanking Kagura behind him and finishing last two enemies with one strike. 

The whole thing took maybe half a minute, but it felt way too long and way too short, because now Gintoki had to turn around and look and deal and this time he couldn’t just wake up and go for a midnight stroll or maybe drown himself in a drink. He allowed himself a heartbeat of stillness, of not looking, but he really shouldn’t, should he, because there was Shinpachi and he was in pain and he was hurt, and Gintoki couldn’t let himself lose anyone else. 

“Shinpachi!” Kagura threw herself down to hover uncertainly over Shinpachi, her wide eyes panicked and teary. “You stupid megane who asked you to do this, huh! Shinpachi? Gin-chan, what do we do? Gin-chan!” 

By this time Gintoki dropped to his knees and stripped from his yukata, turning Shinpachi on his back with a mumbled ‘sorry’, and pressed folded material around the dagger to stop the bleeding. Shinpachi’s rasping breaths simultaneously grated on his nerves and were the most beautiful sound in the world, and Gintoki felt himself breathing faster, as if to match this slightly frantic rhythm. 

“Oi, Shinpachi, if you want a piercing this badly there are better ways of doing it” he forced himself to say, trying to decide on the best course of action. Apply pressure, call a doctor, call that stupid Mayo freak to clean up the mess, don’t let Shinpachi bleed to death, don’t let Kagura do anything stupid, don’t just stand up and walk away because you knew this would happen and Otae is going to kill you swiftly and surely and you don’t really deserve that kind of easy death… 

“...who ever heard of piercings in the chest” came a slurred response and Gintoki had to take a mental step back to understand what Shinpachi was talking about. 

“Young men do crazy things to appear cool, Shinpachi – kun, although with you that ship has sailed when you decided to become the host of glasses” he said reflexively, way too quickly, not really fully aware of he was talking about, grateful for the familiar routine. Even if Shinpachi didn’t answer to this classic jab. His eyes were closed, face contorted in pain. Shit. Okay. Deep breaths. 

“Kagura “ Gintoki turned a little to look Kagura in the face. “There was a house, at the back, go there and get a phone. Call the hospital, tell them Shinpachi was stabbed… the people in the house will tell you where we are” that should at least keep her from harming them too much if they didn’t want to give her a phone “then call the Mayo freak or the Gorilla, the number will be on that ‘wanted’ poster with Zura” 

“Uh-uh!” Kagura leaped to her feet the moment he said ‘go’ but now she hesitated for a second. Before Gintoki could tell her it was a really bad time for teenage rebellion, she quickly bend down closer to Shinpachi and almost yelled “I call dibs on your hospital food, you stupid otaku!” and then she run at speed she usually achieved when she ate the last Gintoki’s pudding from the fridge. 

“That’s right, Shinpachi, think of all the nurses you’ll get to meet...” Gintoki had to fill the silence, letting himself rant a little without really thinking, because the raspy breaths were just too loud and he heard enough of such noises for a hundred lifetimes. It was… He just never could save anyone. It wasn’t fair.  
He couldn’t just lose Shinpachi, not like that, not to some knife, not when there were so many things he wanted to show him so that he could hear those shrill cries of outrage, so many things to share…

Gintoki felt a wave of self-hatred, because it was so obvious. How did he expect this to end? Maybe not now (please, don’t let it be now) but eventually it would go the only way it always went. But it was so easy to get swept away into Kagura’s trust and Shinpachi’s firm belief that Gintoki will make things all right, that it didn’t seem real. Without Shinpachi’s steady presence, without his optimistic outlook, his causal if long-suffering acceptance of everything Gintoki was and wasn’t… 

Never mind. Shinpachi was going to be okay because there can’t be a proper show without the straight man. It’s going to be all right and the montage sequence would kick in any moment now to show the audience the rapid recovery of beloved character. Everything felt a little hazy and Gintoki welcomed that feeling. 

***

The hospital was cold and noisy and smelt of illness in a way that had all of Kagura’s instincts set on ‘flight’. Anego had told her a few times to go home and get some sleep, that they would call if anything happened (but nothing would happen, uh-huh), but she couldn’t really bring herself to stand up even if she felt all jittery just sitting there. It was… The doctor said it wasn’t all that bad, they got him in time, that he wouldn’t… you know… but there was still something wrong to walk away just now. Besides Gin-chan was...calm, maybe, in a way that had her teeth on edge. She didn’t know what to do with this Gin-chan. It was usually Shinpachi’s job to bring him out of this mood, mostly because he could somehow get under that stupid perm and just… remind him of what they were. 

There were people coming and going. Otose with Tama and Catherine, Kyuubei (who surprisingly seemed even interested in Shinpachi well-being, not only in comforting Otae), Gorilla (who even asked about Shinpachi first and only then tried to talk to Otae) and even those two other Shinsengumi jerks, who came to ‘question’ Kagura and Gintoki, were there to check what the doctor said. 

Somehow it pissed Kagura off. 

It was maddening. How different everything was and how she couldn’t really do anything. She was reminding herself every few minutes that Shinpachi was going to be okay, they were going to be okay, but it rang hollow somehow. 

She knew people sometimes went away, willingly or not. She KNEW that. But somehow she never even once thought that Shinpachi could leave. Gin-chan, yes, sometimes Kagura would swear that there were parts of him that were not ‘here’ already, so it didn’t take a leap to know that he could just go. 

But Shinpachi was not like that. Shinpachi was supposed to be there always. He was supposed to BE there, keeping Gintoki in line and with them and maybe in the future Kagura would sometimes go but she would come back every time and it would be great. She could never explain it if she tried (or wanted to, a girl has to have some pride) but there was something that screamed ‘home’ in everything Shinpachi did, no matter how annoying or plain dumb. 

She wanted to punch something. Hard. Or maybe someone. 

But Shinpachi would be disappointed, wouldn’t he, if she just stood up and punched that stupid perm head who was just sitting there in some distance and wouldn’t look at her. So she just sat there, thinking of all the things she will tell him once he wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
